Engineering My Faith

Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on August 10, 2025. Based on Luke 12:32-40.

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Last week, Susan talked about being rich towards God. Today’s passage continues the theme. But here, Luke writes that we are to lay up treasure in heaven, which is just a little bit different. Let’s see if we can figure out what Jesus was trying to teach his disciples.

How do we lay up heavenly treasure? One way is to worship God. I mean, that’s kind of why we’re here, right? To earn our Jesus Points™? Oh, but wait a minute, Jesus Points aren’t real! Under the old Temple sacrificial system, people would bring animals and other items to sacrifice as a way of getting in God’s good graces, earning Adonai Points so to speak. In about 760 BCE, during a time of great prosperity for the Israelites, Amos was chosen as a prophet and sent to God’s people with these words (Amos 5:21-24):

 ²¹ I hate, I despise your festivals,
    and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
²² Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
    I will not accept them,
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
    I will not look upon.
²³ Take away from me the noise of your songs;
    I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
²⁴ But let justice roll down like water
    and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Now, Amos isn’t saying that worship is pointless. Rather, he is saying that worship is not the real goal. The real goal is justice and righteousness. We come to worship God so that we are empowered and inspired to pursue justice and righteousness in our daily lives outside these four walls. Here, justice doesn’t mean tit-for-tat punishment and revenge, and righteousness doesn’t mean being completely pure of heart. Justice is restoring wholeness where there has been harm, and righteousness means the pursuit of that which is right in God’s eyes, rather than what seems good to our selfish desires.

Jesus’s guidance to his followers is to allocate our resources in accordance with God’s justice and righteousness, that is, to allocate our resources in the pursuit of God’s kingdom, which is universal flourishing. As we allocate our resources, so also we will believe and behave. This is a reminder that a church budget is a theological statement, and a personal budget reflects a person’s true values.

In preparation for this sermon, I ran a report of my last twelve months of spending. I was pleasantly surprised that the single biggest category was charitable giving. Next was the cost of our accessible van, including both the loan payments and the major repair we did in January. Then comes the mortgage, then vacations including the cruise we just took, then retirement savings, then groceries. I was a little surprised to find that hunting is less than 2% of my annual budget, about half of what we spend on eating out. So then I asked myself: Is this appropriate? Well, let’s see. Putting God first by giving to charity: check. Van and house for the sake of Rhonda’s quality of life: check. Vacations while Rhonda is still capable of enjoying them, and so that I can recharge, and so that we can keep our relationship refreshed: check. Food: check. That all adds up to about 2/3 of the total. I’m less certain about the relative importance of the smaller buckets, but overall, I’m satisfied.

Then I took a look at the church budget. Now I will say that our expenditures do not necessarily track the budget exactly, but the budget gives us a starting point for discussion. Over the past year, I’ve met with most of the people in the congregation, and it seems like everyone’s priority is worship. The total budget allocation to worship, including Jeff, Lorie, Susan, and me, plus things like organ and piano maintenance, is 17.5% of the annual budget. The two larger categories are the building, at 18.2%, and the non-worship personnel, at 37.8%. Our per capita obligation to the presbytery is 1.9%, and what we allocate to ministries other than worship such as fellowship, education, and the deacons’ activities total less than 1%.

So in effect, the largest portion of our annual budget is to maintain the building and our daily operations, not our worship. Hmm. I don’t think this is what we would choose if we were making a conscious allocation of resources based on the congregation that we have today. Rather, it is the result of decades of cutting back anything deemed non-essential, including a full-time pastor, coupled with a building that was constructed for a very different congregation 60 years ago. I am pleased that we still allocate a significant portion to missions, 3.5%.

Another resource that we all have, some would say our most valuable resource, is time. I looked at my “typical” schedule from last spring. In a given week, I spend roughly equal time on teaching my class and leading this church. I spend more than twice that amount in various meetings related to being department chair. In April and May, my daytime calendar was basically filled with meetings and events almost every weekday. I try to allocate half an hour or more to spiritual development every day, and half an hour or more to running every day. I feel reasonably good about the allocation of my calendar even though it can be a real grind sometimes. I’m naturally an introvert, so even though I recognize the value in having meetings both to get things done and to foster relationships, they can be really draining for me.

Am I “laying up treasure in heaven” with the way I spend my time? Well, I spend roughly one-seventh of my waking hours on commitments to God, whether serving the church or working at the Mission or focusing on my own spiritual development. I’d say that’s not bad. I would recommend that everyone does an assessment of how you allocate your time and your money and see if it aligns with your values.

The point is to pay attention to the right things, and to act in pursuit of justice and righteousness. People often comment on how much I do. One way I can do so many different things is that I see everything I do as part of the same goal. What is the core message of the Gospel? The kingdom of God is at hand! God’s kingdom is universal human flourishing. Whether I am preaching, or teaching engineering, or meeting with my colleagues, or working in the community, my goal is to foster human flourishing. When I’m running or studying, I’m working towards my own flourishing.

The second part of today’s lesson is all about being ready. Jesus said, “Be dressed for action…like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet. … You…must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” This is an echo of Matthew 25, which tells us to keep our lamps lit like the maidens at the wedding waiting for the bridegroom, and also to watch for Jesus to show up in the form of the hungry, the naked, the prisoner—the least of these children of God. We stay ready by paying attention to the right things. We stay ready by spending our time and money in ways that are in accord with God’s claim on our lives. We stay ready by keeping informed about world events like wars, famine, and disease. We stay ready by staying engaged with our community and aware of the needs of our neighbors. We stay ready by learning about the lived experiences of those who are different from us, different by age or class or race or gender or education or socioeconomic status. We stay ready by fulfilling our own spiritual needs, as well as our own material and emotional and relational needs, so that we have resources to help others fulfill their needs. And I want to emphasize that word: our needs.

Unfortunately, most of us put our trust in the wrong things. Rather than stepping out in faith and relying on God to provide, we trust on our own ability to provide. We cling to more than we need. We trust in people and systems that claim to offer security in exchange for our obedience. Why? Fear. Walter Brueggemann wrote,

“The truth is that frightened people will never turn the world, because they use too much energy on protection of self. It is the vocation of the baptized, the known and named and unafraid, to make the world whole. The unafraid are open to the neighbor, while the frightened are defending themselves from the neighbor. The unafraid are generous in the community, while the frightened, in their anxiety, must keep and store and accumulate, to make themselves safe. The unafraid commit acts of compassion and mercy, while the frightened do not notice those in need. The unafraid are committed to justice for the weak and the poor, while the frightened see them only as threats. The unafraid pray in the morning, care through the day, and rejoice at night in thanks and praise, while the frightened are endlessly restless and dissatisfied. So dear people, each of you: Do not fear! I have called you by name; you are mine!” says the Lord.

Throughout the Bible, God’s message is clear, as it is in the opening of today’s passage: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Now, that doesn’t mean that you should be irrational and wasteful. It means that you should focus on God’s kingdom, on helping other people to flourish, on building strong relationships. If you are doing God’s work, people will want to be a part of it.

Take The Rolla Mission for example. They are not a Christian organization, although they were started by a church. However, they are clearly following Jesus’s command to care for the least of his siblings. They have done a phenomenal job for many years. Sara Buell gave a great presentation to the city council this past Monday. Some sample statistics over the last year: 92 jobs secured, 136 people into housing, almost 33,000 meals served and more than 16,000 loads of laundry, and furnishing for 208 new homes.

Any time I’ve spoken with Ashley Brooks about the Mission’s funding, she has been unconcerned. In her early days as their only employee, she would worry about it a lot, but she soon realized that all she needed to do was to tell people about the Mission’s good work, and they would want to be a part of it. Now, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t keep working on keeping the funding flowing—far from it. Sara, who gave the presentation, is a full-time staff member dedicated to donor relations. Ashley frequently submits grant applications. The organization is committed to responsible fiscal management; for example, they didn’t replace one staff member who left because of the federal funding uncertainties. But the Mission doesn’t worry about the future. They just keep looking for ways to help the community, knowing that if they are doing good work, the resources will come.

We too are called to live that way, as individuals and as an organization. Rather than hoarding our time and money, being stingy with our resources out of fear, we are called to be generous as God is generous. We are called to build strong relationships and foster the flourishing of our neighbors, our community, and the world. We are called to step out in faith, to proclaim the gospel for the salvation of humankind, to promote social righteousness, and to exhibit the kingdom of heaven to the world, even as we continue to maintain divine worship and to shelter and nurture the children of God in spiritual fellowship. In these ways, we preserve the Truth that is God’s love for us all. We preserve the Truth that God will make a way for us. And we lay up treasure in heaven, God’s eternal provision that will sustain us always. Amen.

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Preached on July 20, 2025, at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on Colossians 1:11-28. Please note that I say “Paul wrote…” even though many scholars believe that Colossians is not an authentic letter. That is not relevant to my main thesis, though, so I didn’t bring it up.

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Today’s epistle lesson is a continuation of the opening of Paul’s letter to Colossae. Here, he is laying out who he is and why he’s writing. Paul did not start the church in Colossae, and as far as we know, he never visited them. He is writing because he has heard good things about them and wants to encourage them.

Near the end of today’s passage, we hear a bit about how Paul sees himself. He says, “I became [the church’s] minister according to God’s commission that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages…but has now been revealed to his saints.” Paul was once a persecutor of the church, and then had a divine encounter that revealed the mystery of Christ to him. He interpreted this encounter as a divine commission to spread God’s word.

I see some parallels in my life, and I think every preacher would, too. OK, I’m not Paul, but I do feel like something important about God has been revealed to me and I do feel compelled to share it with you all, and with the world. I’ve been meditating on that calling a bit over the past few weeks and especially last weekend when I was on retreat. You may recall that I was formally commissioned almost a year ago, August 11, 2024. Like Paul, I am trying to live into that commission by sharing my thoughts on the divine mystery with you all. So let’s see what we can glean from Paul’s letter.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

That beautiful poem that opens the Gospel of John teaches us that Christ was there at Creation. Paul echoes this when he says, “In him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible.” In both John’s Gospel and Colossians, we see a vision of Christ that transcends the person of Jesus of Nazareth. As our creeds say, Christ is eternally begotten of the Father. Christ was incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, but is something more than just a human being. Christ is God. Christ is the Second Person of the Trinity.

Now don’t worry, I’m not going to try to explain the Trinity again. Suffice it to say that the first Jesus-followers, like Peter, saw him as merely human, but anointed by God to lead the Jewish nation. After his death and resurrection, the more insightful or inspired followers of the Way realized that Jesus was fully human, yes, but also maybe divine. Eventually they realized that he was also fully divine, a part of the Godhead who was present at Creation and will be present at the end of time, the eschaton, the fulfillment of history. Through Christ, all things came into being.

So let’s go back to Genesis. For six days, God created the cosmos through Christ. God created humans in God’s image, breathed life into us, and blessed us. Then God saw everything that had been created and declared it to be VERY GOOD.

Then, the Fall. Through Christ, all things were made perfect, but something terrible happened. The only way humans can truly love is if they are truly free, which means that we are also created with freewill that enables us to choose evil. Despite being created VERY GOOD and having the opportunity to dwell forever in God’s presence, we chose to go our own way and mess things up.

And so, we look around and realize that the world is broken. So very broken. We have terrible diseases like multiple sclerosis—nobody really knows what causes it and nothing can really stop it from progressing. The most we can hope for is to slow it down. And that’s certainly not the only chronic disease that people in this congregation suffer from, just the one that I encounter daily.

Wars continue to rage around the world. One news item this past week is that the US will ramp up its supply of weapons to Ukraine, in an acknowledgement that Russia is the aggressor who illegally seized Crimea and then invaded in an effort to capture more territory, breaking an agreement made back in 1994 during the collapse of the Soviet Union. The people of Ukraine have rallied around their charismatic leader and continue to hold off Russian aggression, but at the expense of perhaps 100,000 lives lost and many more wounded, plus widespread devastation. Russia has paid for its leaders’ ambitions with 1 million casualties. And there’s no end in sight, not really. I don’t see a way out of this where both sides can be satisfied, unless somehow Putin is removed from power.

Meanwhile, war rages across the Middle East. Did you know that there is war in Syria? There was a civil war that resulted in the end of the previous regime, which I thought had then settled down. But this week, I saw that there was a cease-fire between the Sunni and Druze factions in the wake of Israeli airstrikes in Damascus. Meanwhile, Gaza remains a humanitarian catastrophe. On Wednesday, twenty Palestinians were killed at a food distribution center, mostly by being trampled. On the same day, Israeli strikes killed at least 54 others across Gaza. While I’m pretty clear that Russia is the aggressor against Ukraine, the war between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza is far murkier. There has been conflict between Israel and the Palestinians since 1948, conflict that both sides have kept alive for various reasons, mostly related to political power. The latest hot war started because of an incursion by Hamas into Israel, but it is far from clear to me whether Israel’s response has been appropriate—probably not. In both cases, Ukraine and Gaza, the people who really suffer are the powerless, the civilians forced to live in a war zone while great powers fight around them.

Closer to home, we look around and see plenty of poverty and homelessness. Many times, when I learn the back story for a patron at the Mission, I realize that they never had a chance. They didn’t have positive role models in life or a stable home to grow up in. Many of them bear some responsibility for their choices, but others were entirely victims of circumstance. We live in a nation where a serious medical condition can result in debt that leads to homelessness. I mean, if I didn’t have such a good job with such good insurance, Rhonda would be in dire straits.

Even without sickness or poverty, relationships are difficult. In the daily prayer app I use, one of the prompts is to pray for those from whom we are estranged. I have five siblings. I’m close to two of them, have a positive relationship with one, and haven’t actually spoken to the other two in decades. I don’t think that’s too unusual. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of you had similar stories. Maybe not about siblings, but others in your extended family. Things happen, relationships fall apart, and if you’re lucky, you reconcile at someone else’s funeral.

Which of course brings us to the root of all brokenness. Death lingers for us all. Sometimes we know when it is coming, such as when you receive a cancer diagnosis and doctors can predict how long you have. But other times, it comes like a thief in the night. My good friend Wayne had a close encounter two years ago. He had what’s called a widowmaker heart attack in his workshop at home. He was among the fortunate 12% of people who have that kind of heart attack outside a hospital and survive. But if his wife had waited just a few minutes more to check on him, who knows?

Nations can die, just as the Roman Empire did and so many other empires throughout history. I saw this Mark Twain quote recently:

Every civilization carries the seeds of its own destruction, and the same cycle shows in them all. The Republic is born, flourishes, decays into plutocracy, and is captured by the shoemaker whom the mercenaries and millionaires make into a king. The people invent their oppressors, and the oppressors serve the function for which they are invented.

Institutions can die, too. There’s a forum that I visit where one of the discussion threads chronicles the institutions of higher education that are dying or have closed. Recently, there have been announcements of Siena Heights University, Limestone University, and The King’s College (NYC) all closing, and several others showing signs that the end is near, most of which I’ve never heard of. At the last presbytery meeting, we voted to sell one church building and dissolve another congregation.

But of course, that’s nothing new, really. The New Testament was written in the context of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, which radically transformed Judaism. The church in Colossae to which Paul wrote his letter disappeared after an earthquake hit the city. Everything has a life cycle—birth, life, flourishing, decline, and death.

But death is not the end! Let’s read on: Christ is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. So the correct life cycle is: birth, life, flourishing, decline, death, and resurrection. This life we see is not the end. It is a preparation for the glory that is to come. It is the life we learn with, so that we may fully enter a glorious life in Christ’s eternal kingdom.

We have the hope of ultimate reconciliation in the eschaton. I casually dropped that word in a conversation with my friend Sharon recently and she didn’t recognize it, so maybe you all don’t, either. In ancient thought, there were three basic perspectives on history. One perspective is that everything is random and undirected. The universe just wanders where it will, and chaos reigns. Ugh, what a terrible vision. The second perspective, popular in Greek thought and also in many other civilizations throughout history, is that everything is cyclical. Things get better, then things get worse, but nothing ever really changes. What comes around, goes around. Well, maybe that’s a little more comforting.

But the third perspective is the one that I cling to. It’s the Jewish and Christian belief that history has a purpose. History is going somewhere. As Martin Luther King, Jr., famously said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” And that destination, that ultimate end of history, is the eschaton. Someday, all will be made new. Everything will be reconciled to God.

We have hope that someday, pain and suffering will come to an end. We have hope that someday, wars will end, replaced by shalom—peace, wholeness, and unity. We have hope that someday, we will be reconciled to one another just as we are reconciled to God. And we have hope that someday, this broken world will be refreshed and renewed, transformed into Christ’s eternal kingdom.

I don’t know what tomorrow holds. I do know that I can look back on all the good that I have done, as a husband, father, and engineer, and as a leader in my church, campus, and community. I am proud of what I have accomplished, even if it all comes to an end someday. I also know that I can look forward to a glorious future—if not in this world, then in the next. I can’t promise peace in Europe or the Middle East. I can’t promise that this church will return to the attendance and spiritual energy that it once enjoyed. But I can promise that someday, Christ’s reign will be complete. On that day, peace will triumph over war, love will triumph over hate, and eternal life will triumph over death itself. Amen.

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Preached on July 6, 2025, at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on Galatians 6:1-16.

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Before I get into today’s text, I want to back up and give a little context. Galatians is one of the earliest of Paul’s letters—perhaps his first, perhaps written after Thessalonians. None of Paul’s letters were written to us. They were written for particular communities experiencing particular circumstances. In the case of Galatians, Paul was addressing a church community that he had founded, but that was being led astray by so-called “Judaizers.” These were followers of the Way, what we would now call Christians, who taught that to follow Christ required first becoming Jewish. They told the Galatians that they needed to be circumcised and complete all of the other rituals expected of proselytes to Judaism.

Paul countered this argument by saying, in essence, God is doing a new thing here. Sure, Christ came first to the Jews, but not exclusively. If you are already Jewish, as Paul was, then you should continue observing Jewish practices. But if you are not, then following Christ is sufficient. There is no need for circumcision or any other outer markings of Judaism. This was not a conflict between Jews and Christians. This was a conflict between religious traditionalists insisting on maintaining the old ways and a reformer leading people into a new way of being faithful to God.

This was the context for Paul’s dualistic teachings about the spirit and the flesh. He used “the flesh” as a proxy for all sorts of things that are contrary to God’s will, including concerns about religious rituals and traditions. He used “the spirit” as a proxy for the teachings of Jesus and the new life, the new creation that we can each experience through Christ. As Susan discussed last week, living by the spirit with a new life in Christ bears much fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

So now we’re in chapter 6 and Paul is wrapping things up. Today’s text starts with a self-contradictory teaching. First he says to bear one another’s burdens, and then that each person should carry their own load. Well, which is it, Paul? Make up your mind!

When I read this, I immediately thought of elk hunting. As most of you know, I go to Colorado each fall to hunt elk with a group of guys led by Wayne Huebner. We set up a base camp at the end of the road, then hike in to set up a spike camp. When we’re on the mountain, both of Paul’s teachings are appropriate: bear one another’s burdens, but carry your own load.

See, we spend most of the day on our own, searching for elk sign or tracks. In the late afternoon, everyone finds a good blind to hunt from; the best blind, which we call Bull Meadow, usually has two hunters. After dark, everyone heads back to camp. Well, one year, someone in Bull Meadow got an elk. The two guys in the blind field-dressed it and then headed back to spike camp. It was very late by the time they made it, and one guy, Ryan, was really struggling. We hunt at about 11,000’ and he got altitude sickness, aggravated by all of the exertion. Ultimately, around 2 am, he had to get off the mountain. Wayne and another guy, Greg, helped him break camp and hike down to the truck. They took turns carrying his pack and helping him to make sure he could keep moving. Once they got to the truck, Ryan took off and drove down to a lower elevation, where he recovered.

The point is that we all have to be self-sufficient as much as possible, but when someone is in trouble, we help them out. That’s what Paul is teaching. Everyone should do the best they can, but when someone’s burdens get too heavy, the community should help them out. This church helped our family when Rhonda was going through her medical issues twelve years ago, and many of you can probably attest to the support you have received from the deacons and others in the church.

But medical issues are not the only burdens that can get to be too much. Paul goes on to write, “Do not grow weary in doing good.” Weariness is not tiredness. When I go running, I get tired, and then I rest and recover. No problem. When I work on a research project or other tasks on campus, I get brain-tired, but I feel a sense of accomplishment that feeds my soul once I’ve had a nap or a good night’s sleep. At the end of the semester, I’m tired from the marathon of meetings and grading and whatnot, but by midsummer, I’m feeling refreshed and ready for another academic year.

Weariness is a form of tiredness that can’t be resolved with rest. Weariness comes from discouragement. Weariness comes from hopelessness. Weariness comes when your passion is gone. I had two faculty in my department retire at the end of the semester. One of them said to me that about halfway through the semester, he asked himself, Why am I still doing this? He still enjoyed the time in the classroom, but not the grading or dealing with student problems or any of the myriad other things that go into running a class. He had grown weary.

I grew weary myself a few years ago. I was the director of a research center called CREE starting in September 2019. The main goal of a research center is to foster collaboration, which means bringing people together. Well, soon after I took over, COVID-19 hit and we couldn’t gather. For almost three years, I tried to get people to show up to research showcases or other meetings or events. Out of 70 faculty affiliated with the center, I could only get a dozen to show up at all. It was very discouraging. I grew weary of even trying. Fortunately, along came the opportunity to be department chair. I wouldn’t say that this job is easier—in fact, it’s much more work and much more responsibility. And yet, I also find it to be much more rewarding. I can see the impact of what I do, and being chair doesn’t sap my energy the way directing CREE did.

Paul counsels the Galatians not to grow weary in doing good. I serve lunch once a week at the Mission. I have found that to be my limit so that I won’t grow weary. I started volunteering there in 2018 when Ashley Brooks was their only employee. I’ve seen many staff members come and go. In most cases, they reached the limit of the emotional toll that they could handle. Everyone who works with the homeless needs to find a way to manage the inevitable failures, the second-hand trauma, the interpersonal conflicts, and so much more. Some people do not have an adequate support system or have other challenges in their personal lives that cause them to buckle under the stress.

And yet, the Mission continues. They have a great team now, and great programs. Recently, Ashley told me that this year, Rolla has seen a 75% reduction in drug overdoses, a 40% reduction in the population of encampments, and a 20% reduction in crime. Results like this take time. The staff and volunteers of the Mission have been working for YEARS to build trust with the homeless population of Phelps County so that they can help people deal with substance abuse, cope with unresolved trauma in their past, build healthy relationships, and find a way to function in our community. I am honored to play a small part—a very small part, just one meal a week—in their goal of fostering human flourishing.

How has the Mission succeeded? How has Ashley been able to stay in her leadership role? How do the staff keep up the hard work of helping people who are in dire circumstances? Because they lean on each other. Ashley has assembled a team of staff and volunteers who have great emotional regulation, and who carry their own loads but are willing to bear one another’s burdens when they need to. And above all, everyone cares deeply for the people that they serve, individually and as a community. That deep love and caring feeds each person’s soul so that they can persist in doing good. Together they have built a place where God truly dwells, even if nobody ever discusses it. The Mission is a place where everyone strives to see Jesus in each person they meet, without ever mentioning his name.

And that, my friends, is the essence of our calling to exhibit the kingdom of heaven. As I’ve said so often, God’s realm is universal human flourishing. We seek God’s realm by living out the Matthew 25 principles. When King Jesus comes in his glory, he will say to his sheep, “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me. Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these siblings of mine, you did for me.” We are all Christ’s siblings, all made in the image of God, all welcome in God’s family. Jesus did what he could to care for His siblings while he walked the earth, and now asks us to carry on the work.

I wish I could feed ALL of the hungry, welcome ALL of the strangers, clothe ALL of the naked, care for ALL of the sick, and visit ALL of the prisoners. But I can’t, and if I tried, I’d be burned out in a week. The fastest way to become weary of doing good is to try to do too much. Fortunately, God doesn’t ask us to solve ALL of the world’s problems, only what we are capable of. We are asked not to be burdened, but only to carry our own load. God asks each one of us to exhibit the kingdom of heaven in our own particular way.

So the question is, Where is your heart? What is God calling YOU to do? I know what my calling is. It culminated last Monday in opening a community center that I would be happy to discuss with you sometime. But what is YOUR calling? Who do YOU want to serve?

Usually, when we talk about missions and serving the community, discussions go one of two ways. The first is to raise money or collect items. This is wonderful, and is the only gift some people have to offer. It will mean so much to the children of our community for them to receive toys or to have crayons when they go Back to School. It means so much when we collect the four PC(USA) special offerings. I don’t want to cast any aspersions on that.

At the same time, giving our money isn’t enough. God asks us to give our whole selves. So the other direction conversations often take is to say, “Well, we could serve a meal, but we don’t have people who can work in a kitchen anymore. We don’t have people who can help build a house. We can’t do XYZ.” And then those conversations fizzle out.

But the reality is that there are a lot of spiritual needs that are going unfulfilled in our community. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs starts with physiological and safety needs, but doesn’t stop there. Everyone needs to experience love and belonging. Everyone needs respect and recognition. Everyone needs to have a sense of purpose and fulfillment.

Let me tell you once again about an amazing organization that is striving to satisfy these needs. A few months ago, ICE signed a contract with Phelps County to house detainees here. Some people heard about the detainees and were moved with compassion, and so they created an organization called Abide in Love. Phelps County Jail has a lot of onerous restrictions, so nobody can actually visit the detainees as Jesus commanded. But Abide in Love is doing the next best thing. They are communicating with the detainees via the app that the jail allows. They are providing basic hygiene items through the jail commissary. They are enabling the detainees to communicate with their families. In most cases, Abide in Love has little to no impact on the ultimate resolution of the detainees’ cases—that’s up to the government and immigration attorneys and the judicial system. But they are having a tremendous impact on the hearts and souls of the detainees. I’ve seen posts of messages that they have received, such as, “Thank you for the good work you are doing for us immigrants. God will help you greatly. There are very few people who offer this support.” Or another one: “With the three dollars you gave me, I was able to call my mom in Honduras. I hadn’t spoken to her in almost 40 days because I didn’t have any funds. Thank you again.” Or: “Thank you, it is appreciated. And if there’s a possibility you could give us underwear, I would be very grateful because I don’t know if you know that here we all enter without underwear because they take it away from us, and they only give us two jumpsuits. Sorry for my boldness, I say this because I am one of many who don’t have money here inside, nor do I have anyone outside who can send me some.”

The point is, the detainees are people who God loves, and so there are people in our community who have been moved with compassion to find out what their actual needs are and to help meet them. It’s not about the money, it’s about human connection and meeting people where they are in their time of need.

Maybe you too are moved by the conditions of the ICE detainees and want to help with the work that Abide in Love is doing. In that case, they have a Facebook Page, or I can get you connected. But my point is that maybe there are other needs in Rolla or Phelps County or rural Missouri, other people who have spiritual needs that you feel called to fulfill. If so, I’m here to help. My role is to facilitate your response to God’s claim on your life. Nothing great can ever be done alone, so I can help you find people with that same calling, whether they are in this church or not.

So let us not become weary in doing good. Let’s help one another find a way to respond to God’s unique call on each of our lives, and support each other so we can all persist until we reap a harvest of spiritual fruits. Amen.

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Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on June 15, 2025, Trinity Sunday. Based on John 16:12-15.

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There’s a YouTube video that I love called, “St. Patrick’s Bad Analogies.” In it, St. Patrick attempts to explain the Trinity to a couple of “simple Irish folk,” who turn out to not be so simple after all. The first analogy he uses is water: it can be a liquid, ice, or steam. The simple Irish folk chastise him for promoting modalism, a heretical doctrine that claimed the Trinity were three modes of God rather than three distinct persons.

He says, OK, well, it’s like the sun: it’s a star, that produces heat, and that produces light. Wait a minute, Patrick: that’s Arianism. Arius was a heretic who claimed that the Father was the ground of all being, and that the Son and the Holy Spirit issued from the Father.

Now he gets to his most famous analogy: a shamrock. Like three leaves of a shamrock, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit together comprise God. But wait: that’s partialism! Each person of the Godhead is God, not just part of God. They are all fully divine, and yet together they are One.

So finally St. Patrick falls back to the creed of Athanasius:

we worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity,

   neither blending their persons

    nor dividing their essence.

        For the person of the Father is a distinct person,

        the person of the Son is another,

        and that of the Holy Spirit still another.

        But the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one,

        their glory equal, their majesty coeternal.

Athanasius’s creed goes on and on, but it’s more of the same. Did you understand what I just said? I sure didn’t.

They say that Trinity Sunday is the day when the most heresy is committed in pulpits around the world. The root of the problem is that ultimately, when we are discussing God, words fail. Human understanding fails. As St. Augustine once said, “If you understand, it is not God.” Our finite human brains cannot comprehend the infinite glory of our triune God. So we do our best to explain things and end up falling short of reality.

I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m colorblind. What that means is that my eyes do not perceive color the same way most people’s eyes do. So let me ask you: What does green look like? How would you describe it to me? You could say, well, it’s what grass looks like, but that’s not really helpful. That’s telling me what objects display a certain color, but not what the color actually is.

Theology can be roughly divided into cataphatic and apophatic. Cataphatic theology is where I mostly find my home, as do most mainline Protestants. Cataphatic theology is positive theology: it’s based on affirmations of who God is. We have creeds, right? A whole book full of them, the Book of Confessions, that try to explain God. For 1700 years, Christians have been dividing themselves over their understandings of God and the words they use. The Eastern and Western churches split for many reasons, but a big one was a clause that the Roman church added to the Nicene Creed, “the Holy Spirit, …who proceeds from the Father and the Son.” The Eastern churches said that no, the Holy Spirit proceeds only from the Father. In this and many other ways, we Christians have splintered what should be one Church over words.

Yet in the end, words fail. Then enters apophatic theology, which literally means “unsaying.” It’s sometimes called “negative theology” because it consists of saying what God is not. Here’s an example. “God is love.” Yes, God is loving, and 1 John is an extended meditation on how God is love. But think of all the ways we use that word. I love my family. I love this church. I love pizza. I love hunting. I love working on electronics. Are these all ways that God loves, or that God is love? Yes, but God is so much more!

And then think of all the ways that we show love. You can probably think of many times in your life when you weren’t sure what the most loving choice was, particularly if you are a parent or if you were in a relationship with an addict. Where is the line between loving someone and enabling bad behavior? Where is the line between appropriate discipline and cruelty? It’s hard to know. There are many people who think yelling at people and calling them sinners is in fact loving, because they want to keep them from going to Hell. Are all of these ways that God is love?

So in the end, if what we have and what we do is love, God cannot possibly be love because God is so much MORE than what we could possibly mean by that word. Thus, we say no, God is not love, at least not as we humans understand it. That word, “love,” points us towards God, but God transcends it in every possible way.

What we are left with are analogies and metaphors and stories that help us understand God in some way, but ultimately, we always fall short. The fundamental Trinitarian formula is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Today, on Father’s Day, I’m happy to make an analogy between fathers everywhere and our Eternal Father. The analogy fails in two basic ways. One, God did not literally “father” humanity, but rather fashioned us in God’s image. Two, if God is our Father, He is a perfect Father, one so far exceeding human fathers in every way that we cannot ultimately understand God through that term. A related problem is that we don’t all have good father figures with which to compare God.

Back in 2006, PC(USA) commissioned and endorsed a study on the Trinity, titled “God’s Love Overflowing,” that explored many other ways to understand the mystery of our triune God. So let’s try another trinitarian formula that was in their report: God the compassionate mother, God the beloved child, and God the life-giving womb. Here, the first Person of the Trinity is still a parent, but now we can speak of her feminine attributes. If you have trouble with an authoritarian Father image, perhaps a compassionate, caring, comforting Mother image is better. God the Mother takes responsibility for healing our wounds, teaching us to be loving, and guiding us into healthy relationships. The second Person of the Trinity is a beloved child, our divine sibling who demonstrates how to love God the Parent and how to love one another. We are all beloved children of God, and we can all model our lives on Christ, regardless of gender. The third Person of the Trinity is the source of our lives, the womb from which the Church was born just last week on Pentecost—or, well, 2000 years ago, but you know what I mean.

So if God the Mother, the Child, and the Womb help you to understand our triune God as the source of love and life, that’s great! But in the end, this metaphor fails to capture all of the attributes of God.

Let’s try another one: God the Rainbow of Promise, God the Ark of Salvation, and God the Dove of Peace. In this trinitarian re-telling of Noah’s story, we get another perspective on the ways the three Persons of the Trinity interact with humanity. The First Person sets a rainbow in the sky as a reminder of the promise that humanity is beloved and will never be destroyed. By extension, we can comprehend all of the promises of God given throughout the Bible as expressions of the fundamental promise that God treasures us. God acts in the world as the Second Person of the Trinity, the ark that carries us to salvation. Christ didn’t just proclaim salvation, Christ is the vessel of our salvation, the embodiment of the promise that the First Person makes to us. We know of our salvation because of the Third Person, the dove who brings peace to us all.

I think this is a beautiful way to understand the story of Noah, as an experience of the triune God. But it too fails. Christ was not just a boat made of wood. Christ was actually a human being, Jesus of Nazareth. The Holy Spirit is not just peace, but also power and love and unity. So yes, God is rainbow, ark, and dove, but not really.

In the end, none of our analogies or metaphors really capture the essence of the Trinity, but all of them point in the general direction of who God is and how God interacts with humanity. One common theme through it all is LOVE. The Trinity is three Persons united with so much love that it overflows. There is so much love that the three Persons are fully united into one God. And then God’s love flows out and fills the universe, uniting us all into God, too.

In John’s Gospel, Jesus’s farewell discourse gets very mystical: the Father is in the Son as the Son is in the Father and the Son is in us as we are in Him and he will send an Advocate who tells us all things about the Father and the Son. Wow. I think this was an early attempt, in the limited language that the disciples could comprehend, to approach the divine Truth of the Trinity. I probably haven’t said it any better, but maybe some additional analogies can help us, as Paul wrote in Ephesians, to have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that we may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Because in the end, we cannot comprehend the Trinity, we cannot fully comprehend just how much love God has for us, and we cannot comprehend the infinite riches of God’s grace with our finite minds. What we can do, though, is to “unsay” what we think we know about God, all of the limits we try to place on God, and experience God’s overflowing love.

The best way I have ever found to truly experience that love is through other people. I can point to two somewhat mystical God experiences. One was in a worship service with probably a hundred people, and one was sitting on my couch with a friend. Beyond that, the times I have witnessed the kingdom of God were when I was surrounded by people who were experiencing true community, authentically expressing themselves, and affirming and supporting one another. That is the gift of the Trinity, overflowing love that binds us to one another and allows us to embrace our identity as beloved children of God, Christ’s siblings.

So tell me, what does green look like? Words fail. Just as our words about God fail. Our faith should rest not on human wisdom, but on the power of God. Our metaphors, our analogies, and our stories can point us towards God, though, and help us to live together as members of God’s family, loving one another through the overflowing love of the Godhead. Amen.

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Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on June 1, 2025. Based on John 17:20-26.

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I’d like to start by situating this passage in the story of Jesus’s life and ministry as related in the Gospel of John. The first half of John’s Gospel is the Book of Signs, in which Jesus performs seven major miracles. This passage comes during the shift to the Book of Glory, which culminates in Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection.

A few chapters earlier, Jesus and his disciples gather for a Passover meal. At the start, Jesus washes his disciples’ feet as a prophetic action to demonstrate what love means and how love acts. Judas departs to betray him, and then Jesus begins his farewell discourse. Today’s passage is the last part of his high priestly prayer that concludes the discourse before they all depart for the garden of Gethsemane. This is one of the major examples of Jesus showing us how to pray. He earnestly asks God the Father to unify all of God’s people. This passage is very mystical—Jesus prays that the Father would be in the Son as the Son is in the Father as both are in the disciples and the disciples are in them. Wow! How do we make sense of that? This can only be true if we are all bound together by the Holy Spirit, the Advocate that Jesus promises at the beginning of his farewell discourse.

The Gospels are stories of Jesus’s life, but they are more than that. They are stories told to specific communities who were trying to figure out how to follow Jesus. The first Christians were Jews who believed that Jesus had come to reform Judaism. Eventually, though, they realized that Jesus’s message of hope, peace, and love was meant for more than just Jews. Peter had a vision that opened his mind and his heart to Gentiles, and subsequently Paul was commissioned specifically to take the Gospel message to Gentiles around the Roman Empire.

One of the hallmarks of the early church was its diversity. Traditionally, religious communities were ethnically segregated. Each community had its patron god or gods and its own worship practices. In a sense, the Jews were no different—they just thought that their God was supreme over all other gods, or that the other people’s gods were not real. So no matter where they lived, they cleaved to the one true God. For this reason, Jews and Christians were sometimes accused of being atheists because they didn’t worship the local idols, the local gods. If something bad happened to a city, it must have been because the Jews hadn’t properly sacrificed to the patron gods. That led to persecution throughout the Greco-Roman world.

Anyway, pre-Christian religions were segregated by ethnicity and, to some extent, by class. Christianity was different. They welcomed people of any ethnicity, any gender, any social class. Take the Ethiopian eunuch for example. Being Ethiopian, he was not fully welcome in the Temple in Jerusalem. Being a eunuch and likely a slave, he was definitely not welcome in the Temple and would not have been welcome in many social and religious settings. Yet when he encountered Philip on the road as he was heading home from Jerusalem, Philip baptized him and welcomed him into the Christian family.

Throughout the Roman Empire, Christian churches sprouted and grew. In almost every case, they were “house churches,” which is to say, they were groups of people who would meet at one person’s house to worship and share a meal together—the meal we will share at the Lord’s Table in a few minutes. Inviting someone into your house is far different from inviting someone to a public place like a church. I mean, if you are out in public and start chatting with a stranger about religion, you would surely feel more comfortable inviting them to worship with you than to come to your house for a cup of coffee. Yet the house churches were very welcoming to people of all different backgrounds. Generally, groups gathered in the homes of the well-to-do so that there would be enough room for everyone, yet even slaves were welcome and treated as equals. Although later church hierarchy would exclude women from leadership, these house churches were frequently led by women, which makes sense when you consider the typical role of women in managing household affairs and offering hospitality.

Not only were the house churches welcoming of a wide range of people, the Christians actively loved their community, those outside their church. One of the primary contributions of the Christian church is the invention of the hospital. Before the fourth century, physicians treated patients in their homes and would stick to their own people. Then Christians began opening hospitals that welcomed anyone, Christian or not, from any class or ethnicity. The open-heartedness of early Christianity goes a long way towards explaining how it grew from a minor sect of a minor religion into the dominant religion in the Greco-Roman world.

Still today, Christians seek to love those who are outside their immediate circle. A few weeks ago, I related a short story about Carol Mayorga, an immigrant who is being detained. Let me expand on that just a bit. Carol, whose legal name is Ming Li Hui, went to St. Louis for what she thought was a routine visa renewal. Instead, she was arrested by ICE and transferred to Phelps County Jail. A group in Rolla called Abide in Love has been tracking the ICE detainees in our jail. My friend Lucy had specifically been in touch with Carol. Presbyterian pastor Kirsten King from Carol’s hometown of Kennett, MO, reached out to our church, so I had a video call with Carol. Since then, Carol has been transferred to Greene County Jail, where she remains. Through it all, Lucy has kept in touch with her and her lawyer. Lucy reached out to NPR, who visited Kennett and wrote a great article about the situation. Subsequently, the New York Times also wrote an article about her. Lucy has regular video calls with Carol to share God’s love and human connection.

Carol is from Hong Kong originally and is Catholic. Why did a Presbyterian pastor contact us? Why is my Episcopalian friend staying in touch with her? Because we are all one humanity. Christ told us to love one another. He didn’t say that we should only love those who love us, or only those who share our values or our community or anything else. He said that we should love our neighbor AND our enemy.

For a couple of months, I was participating in a book study that Patrick Wilson led at his church, CrossRoads. Through that, I learned about two types of churches: a bounded set and a centered set. In a bounded set, there is a clear boundary between who is “in” and who is “out.” For example, in many churches, there are pretty firm rules about who is and is not allowed to take communion. In many churches, there are pretty firm rules about who is allowed to serve in a leadership role. In many churches, there are pretty firm rules about who is considered worthy of membership and who is not. I would say that in the Presbyterian church, the boundary is a little bit porous, but there definitely is a boundary. We allow anyone to take communion, and there are no classifications of people who are disallowed from membership or leadership, but you do have to subscribe to certain beliefs to become a member and then be chosen to be a leader.

In a centered set, there is a clear center, and then there are people who are closer to or further from the center, and either moving towards or away from the center. That’s the kind of church Jesus is describing. The center is LOVE. The center is the mutual love of God the Father and God the Son, who are in one another and whose love flows out and fills the cosmos. Near the center are people like Jesus’s disciples: those who truly know Christ and have given their whole selves to serving God’s kingdom. That’s what God desires for all of us. But most of us aren’t there yet. The most we can hope is that we are moving towards Christ and His love as the source of our being.

Jesus describes an existence of complete unity as another aspect of the kingdom of God. Someday, we will achieve complete unity. In the meantime, as we move deeper into Christ’s love, we move towards fuller inclusion and fuller belonging. Inclusion is an open door: All are welcome. No longer do we have ushers who act like bouncers to keep out certain people. Everyone can come in, sit down, and join us in worship. Belonging takes that to a higher level, though. On a website called Inclusion Geeks, I found this description:

Understanding the difference between inclusion and belonging is crucial because focusing solely on inclusion can create a hollow feeling. Imagine inviting someone to a party but then leaving them standing awkwardly in the corner. They’re technically included, but they don’t truly belong. Focusing only on inclusion might bring diverse individuals into the organization, but without belonging, they may feel isolated, unheard, and ultimately disengaged.

Inclusion is opening the door. Belonging requires building genuine relationships, empowerment, trust, and psychological comfort. Belonging rests on celebrating differences, not minimizing them. We are all beloved children of God, made in God’s image. Yet we all express a different facet of God’s infinite being. Only by celebrating the many faces of humanity can we truly experience God’s presence in and among us.

And that celebration must be active. It isn’t enough to sit quietly in your pew and think positive thoughts about people who are different from you. Instead, we must actively engage with people who are outside our family circle, our friend circle, and our church circle. We must seek out new experiences, new people, different ways of being, and different perspectives.

Our church is a microcosm of the Christian church in America. We are all at a crossroads. For the past 500 years, we have split repeatedly over differences in theology, different ways of understanding God’s calling, different views on who is welcome and who is fit to lead. The process has accelerated in the past fifty years, with the predictable result that succeeding generations are rejecting all of it. If we can’t get our act together and center ourselves on the Truth, God’s Truth, which is LOVE, then why should anyone outside the church care what we have to say? If church is a place where people encounter conflict, or shame, or trauma, why would anyone join? If what we say we believe doesn’t match the truth of our actions, why should anyone trust us?

The only way forward and the only hope for the Christian Church is to live what Jesus commanded his disciples and pray as he prayed: that we may all be one, that we may dwell in God the Father and God the Son and that they may dwell in us. Then empowered by the Holy Spirit, we can exhibit the kingdom of God to the world, the love that unites all of humanity as God’s people.

Jesus described a grand vision for the kingdom of God: complete unity. This unity is based not on sameness, but on the foundation of God’s love in Christ. As we widen the circle of who we call neighbor, who we call friend, who we call sibling in Christ, we move deeper into the infinite love that Christ offers us all. Amen.

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Preached May 18, 2025, at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on Revelation 21:1-8.

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I don’t usually preach from Revelation. In fact, I don’t know if I’ve ever preached from Revelation. I’m no fire-and-brimstone preacher. But I take what the lectionary gives me. I could have preached about love from the Gospel of John. I could have preached about inclusion from the Acts of the Apostles. But you’ve heard all that from me before, right? So today, you’re getting some apocalyptic preaching. 

Before I get into the reading, let’s try to get the perspective of the original readers of Revelation. John of Patmos was probably not the same John who was an apostle, nor the John who wrote the Gospel that bears that name, nor the John who wrote the epistles that bear that name… Anyway, John the Revelator was exiled to the island of Patmos sometime late in the first century CE, probably around the year 95. This is about 25 years after the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. In the 60s, there was a lot of turmoil in Jerusalem, culminating in a revolution that was absolutely squashed by the Romans. In 70 CE, the Temple was destroyed and Jews were all banished from Jerusalem. Without the Temple, all those who followed our God had to figure out what God had in mind for them. 

One group, the Pharisees, determined that the Temple sacrificial system could be replaced by the many traditions that had grown up in the synagogues. Out of that group grew rabbinic Judaism, the Jewish faith that continues today. 

Another group saw an altogether different vision of the future. Of course the Temple had been destroyed—God no longer needed a dwelling place on earth. Jesus Christ had come to show us God’s essential nature, and then through his death and resurrection, he established a new Way to follow God. In fact, they called themselves followers of the Way. They envisioned a God who transcended any particular place, and indeed one who transcended any tribe or nation. Out of this group grew Christianity in all its varied forms. 

But remember, many Christians saw themselves as still Jews who had grown in their understanding of God. John of Patmos was thoroughly Jewish. Throughout the book of Revelation and especially in today’s passage, there are references to Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, and other books in our canon, plus many extra-biblical books like 1 Enoch. John was immersed in apocalyptic messianic Judaism and wove its themes all through his writing. 

What was John’s ultimate goal in writing? Well, the core message of Revelation is this: In the end, GOD WINS. Things may look dire—God’s people may be subjected to persecution and the Temple may have been destroyed, but God is at work battling evil and transforming the world. There is always reason for hope. 

In today’s passage, we read that a new heaven and a new earth is descending because the old things had passed away. God is transforming the world into God’s eternal kingdom, which as I have so often said is an existence of universal human flourishing. Most days, it’s hard to see a path from where we are to such an existence. There are so many terrible things happening in the world—how could we ever reach universal flourishing? Well, those old things need to pass away. There are lots of good things in the world, too—but the good is bound up with the bad, often inextricably so. We need to be willing to let go of everything, good and bad, for the sake of God’s kingdom. Only then can we achieve the transformative restoration of all things that is needed to achieve God’s original vision for humanity. 

As the new heaven and new earth are descending, so too is a new Jerusalem, a new holy city. In these last chapters of the Bible, we hear echoes of the first chapters of the Bible. Jesus Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. Christ was there at the beginning, when God spoke all things into being and declared them very good. Christ will be there at the end, too, when all things will be restored to that state of perfection, of wholeness and holiness. 

In the beginning, God placed humanity in a garden. Back then, all we needed was the bare minimum to survive. At first, there was only one human, but God recognized that Adam was incomplete in himself. Being made in the image of God, we are made for relationship. Adam needed a mate, a helper, a companion. Only a loving relationship can really make us complete. 

But no single person can satisfy all of our needs. Many marriages have failed because one person relied too completely on the other and became emotionally unsatisfied. This is no criticism of the other partner—nobody is perfect and therefore nobody can satisfy all of another person’s needs. Similarly, no relationship is pure and untarnished. When you are close to someone, you two can hurt each other because humans are finite, imperfect beings. 

And so a garden is not sufficient for a person to thrive, and a single partner is not sufficient for the pair to thrive. We need a community. We need to be embedded in a complex web of relationships that are individually good, and together provide everything we need to flourish. Metaphorically, we need a city, a Holy City, a place where God dwells and unites us all and ensures the health of every relationship. 

We need a Holy City where everyone we love is there with us. Death will be no more, and neither will there be mourning or crying. This is only possible if absolutely everyone is there with us. If I get to heaven and my Grandma or my Uncle Dick aren’t there, it won’t feel very heavenly. 

The problem is, if everyone I love is there, everyone I hate will be there too. There are people who have hurt me over the years, old pains that sometimes flare up, things that cannot be resolved in the present age. There are surely people that I have hurt. Someday, all of the physical, emotional, and spiritual pain we have inflicted on one another will be healed so that we can be reconciled to one another. Only through that reconciliation will we be able to truly enjoy God’s presence. Only through that reconciliation will the world be truly transformed into God’s kingdom. 

But there are at least two main parts to reconciliation. First, the transgressor needs to be reformed. Here’s where the fire and brimstone come in. In Revelation 21:8, we read, “But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, the murderers, the sexually immoral, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” That sounds pretty bad, right? I mean, I’m not a murderer, but who among us has never lied? Who among us has never acted cowardly? This seems to doom everyone, or almost everyone, to eternal conscious torment in a lake of fire. Or the slightly more positive interpretation is annihilation: those who don’t make the cut to enter the Holy City are annihilated and cease to exist. 

But again, if I get to heaven and the people I love aren’t there, what kind of heaven would that be? The third way to interpret this passage harkens back to Malachi 3:2-3: “But who can endure the day of [the Lord’s] coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver.” The fire and brimstone are not to destroy or torment us, but to purify us. This vivid metaphor helps us to understand the pain that comes from confronting the many ways we have fallen short of God’s glory and failed to show our love of God or our love of our neighbor. This reckoning will be painful, but is necessary to purify us and to remove from us all of our hatred and all of the ways we hurt one another. Then we can truly repent and, having repented, we can truly reconcile with those whom we have hurt, or those who have hurt us. 

And then, all will be well. Fernando Sabino, a Brazilian writer, once wrote, “In the end, everything will be all right. If it’s not all right, it’s not the end.” Until we have all been purified and reconciled with one another, it is still not the end. God will keep working on us, individually and collectively, until everyone is flourishing. God will keep transforming the world until it truly reflects God’s vision for humanity. 

We might wish that we wouldn’t need to go through all of this. The pain and loss of the present age lead to mourning and tears, but Christ promises that in the end, mourning and crying shall be no more. Julian of Norwich, a famous 14^th-century visionary, wrote this about her 13^th Showing: 

In my folly, before this time I often wondered why, by the great foreseeing wisdom of God, the onset of sin was not prevented: for then, I thought, all should have been well. This impulse [of thought] was much to be avoided, but nevertheless I mourned and sorrowed because of it, without reason and discretion. 

But Jesus, who in this vision informed me of all that is needed by me, answered with these words and said: ‘It was necessary that there should be sin; but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.’ 

These words were said most tenderly, showing no manner of blame to me nor to any who shall be saved.

Jesus doesn’t blame us for our sinfulness and imperfections. He was one of us and so he knows how hard this life is.  We accumulate pain and sorrow throughout the length of our days, but we know that in the end, all shall be well. 

OK, great—someday, we’ll all be in heaven and all shall be well. You should know me well enough, though, to know that I’m not here to promise you pie in the sky when you die in the sweet by and by.  

The core message of the Gospel is that the kingdom of God is at hand! Yes, in the end, all shall be well, but we can have glimpses of what that will be like as the world is slowly transformed. Because the new heaven and the new earth and the new Jerusalem are coming to us. They come to us each day as we strive to create a world that is more aligned with God’s original intention for universal human flourishing. We are living in the Holy City right now. It’s here. It’s within us and among us. 

Sure, we still hurt one another, and we are still finite and imperfect beings. But we have been made in God’s image, and that means we have the capacity within ourselves to express God’s love. We have the ability to forgive, and to repent, and to reconcile with one another. It doesn’t happen very often, but once in a while, I get a sense that I am living in God’s kingdom, if only for a moment or perhaps an afternoon. Once in a while, I have a feeling that God loves me, and that God has connected me with the people around me. I get a feeling that everyone has what they need to flourish, to live out their true identity as a beloved child of God. That feeling passes quickly, but it’s real, and it assures me that indeed, all shall be well. 

The task God sets before each one of us is to find ways to transform the world into God’s kingdom. God works with us and through us as we strive to purge ourselves of evil and hatred. God works with us and through us as we strive to share God’s love with our community, to love as we are loved. God works with us and through us as we seek to feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, and bind up the broken-hearted. 

Someday, all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well. Today, let us strive to make Rolla just a little bit more like God’s vision for humanity. Let us seek ways to help everyone flourish and thrive. In that way, we will live in God’s kingdom today and walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which we have been called. Amen.  

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Preached on May 11, 2025, at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on John 10:22-30.

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This passage opens by putting us in a certain place at a certain time. Jesus is in the Temple, in the portico of Solomon, during the Festival of Dedication. We normally call this holiday something else: Hanukkah. It is also sometimes called the Festival of Lights. It is the major Jewish holiday that was created most recently.

Let me take you back to the time of the Maccabees. In 167 BCE, Judea was under the control of the Seleucid Empire. The emperor Antiochus IV Epiphanes ordered the desecration of the Temple. He had an altar to Zeus erected and ordered pigs—the most unclean of animals—to be sacrificed on the existing altar. This action provoked a revolt that succeeded in 164 BCE.

So, the Jews had re-captured the Temple, but it was still desecrated. The altar had to be re-built, and then they had to light the menorah. Unfortunately, all of the oil available had been defiled, and it would take eight days to make and purify new oil. Miraculously, one day’s worth of oil lasted all eight days. Maimonides, also called the Rambam, one of the greatest rabbis of the Middle Ages, wrote:

When, on the twenty-fifth of Kislev, the Jews had emerged victorious over their foes and destroyed them, they re-entered the Temple where they found only one jar of pure oil, enough to be lit for only a single day; yet they used it for lighting the required set of lamps for eight days, until they managed to press olives and produce pure oil. Because of this, the sages of that generation ruled that the eight days beginning with the twenty-fifth of Kislev should be observed as days of rejoicing and praising the Lord. Lamps are lit in the evening over the doors of the homes, on each of the eight nights, so as to display the miracle. These days are called Hanukkah, when it is forbidden to lament or to fast, just as it is on the days of Purim. Lighting the lamps during the eight days of Hanukkah is a religious duty imposed by the sages.

So, Jesus is in the Temple that had been consecrated miraculously by a light that did not fail. But we know that Jesus Christ is the Light of the World, the Light that will never fail. He came to his own people at this auspicious time to remind them that the Light comes from God the Father, and that he is of one essence with the Father.

This event occurs pretty close to the end of Jesus’s ministry. Throughout the Gospel of John, there is a succession of “signs,” miracles that indicate Jesus’s divine nature. At this late juncture, his opponents are still trying to figure out just who he is and what he’s going to do. So they ask him to state plainly whether or not he is the Messiah. I think the context of the question, being asked in the Temple during Hanukkah, helps us to understand just what they were asking.

The Jews were an oppressed nation. In 63 BCE, they became a client state of the Romans, and then lost all independence in 37 BCE. They looked back to their freedom that preceded the Romans and yearned for a savior who would return them to those glory days. Remember that in 586 BCE, Judah was conquered by the Babylonians and remained a conquered nation for centuries. As I said a few minutes ago, by 167 BCE, they were ruled by the Seleucid Empire. King Antiochus IV Epiphanes began persecuting Jewish practices and ultimately desecrated the Temple. Mattathias, a priest, was commanded by some soldiers to perform a sacrifice to the Greek gods in his home village, but instead he resisted and killed one of the Seleucid officials. This began a rebellion, led by Mattathias and his sons. When Mattathias was killed in 166 BCE, his third son Judah took command. He was nicknamed HaMakabi  or “The Hammer.” Judah Maccabee went on to defeat the Seleucid army and took Jerusalem on the 25^th of Kislev, December 14, 164 BCE.

So the Jews were gathered in the Temple to celebrate a great military victory, led by someone apparently designated by God to liberate God’s people from a foreign occupying army. Just as Judah Maccabee freed Judea from Seleucid rule and re-consecrated the Temple, the Jews were seeking a Messiah who would lead them to victory over the Romans, free them from oppression, and purify the Temple. This is the context for the question: Are you the Messiah?

Jesus says, in effect, Yes, I am, but not the kind of Messiah you are expecting! Jesus’s actions, the six great signs reported in the Gospel of John up to this point as well as many others that weren’t recorded, demonstrated his divine nature and his earthly mission. He came not to destroy, but to build up. He came to feed the poor, heal the sick, and free the prisoner. He came to bring forth God’s kingdom, not through force but through love.

Today is sometimes called Good Shepherd Sunday. When Jeff changed the anthem, I said, “Yeah, I was just thinking that the liturgy and music was a little light on allusions to sheep and shepherds.” Sheep and shepherds are common motifs throughout the Bible. God has been likened to a shepherd since at least the time of David, who wrote that “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” Modern Americans don’t have a lot of experience with sheep, so I looked up the kinds of things a shepherd does to care for their sheep:

• Planning for where to graze the sheep, to ensure access to good food and water—still water because sheep are afraid of moving water.
• Finding supplemental hay etc. during times of scarcity.
• Protecting the flock from predators.
• Herding the flock together so they can be protected from harm.
• Separating out sheep who are causing problems, or who need special attention due to illness or injury.

Through it all, shepherds develop a close, personal bond with their sheep. It is true that sheep know their shepherd’s voice and follow it. Jesus calls us to follow him in what he does. We have been chosen to be a part of his flock, and in turn he protects us and cares for us. Jesus’s contemporaries were looking for a strong leader to lead a pack of wolves against the Romans, but God chose instead a Good Shepherd to guide a flock of sheep. In this passage and others, Jesus promises to always be with us, to care for us and protect us and guide us, to restore our souls, to leads us in paths of righteousness. Jesus promises that we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Out of gratitude for this love and care and protection and guidance, we are called to live out our lives as Jesus’s sheep. What does that mean? Well, let’s turn to another famous passage in Matthew 25. When the King comes in his glory, he will separate people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. To the sheep he says, “Come, inherit the kingdom, for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” When did the righteous do this? Just as they did to one of the least of his brothers and sisters, they did it to Jesus.

This is what it means to be a sheep of Jesus’s fold. We are called to pursue Jesus’s righteousness and do as he did, feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger. As I have said so often, the core of the Gospel is that the kingdom of God is at hand! Our King comes not only at the end of the age, but each day in the oppressed and forgotten and marginalized people of this age. God’s kingdom is an existence of universal human flourishing. It is shalom, a peace that transcends an absence of conflict and encompasses wholeness, completeness, perfection. As the body of Christ, we are called to exhibit the kingdom of God here and now.

The Matthew 25 initiative from PC(USA) is built on three pillars: building congregational vitality, dismantling structural racism, and eradicating systemic poverty. Each congregation that signs on to become a Matthew 25 congregation needs to live out one or more of these pillars in its local context. Given what I know from having been in this church for 17 years and having spoken with about ¼ of the members, I believe we are well-positioned to address poverty. This pillar is described on the PC(USA) site like this:

Eradicating systemic poverty involves addressing the root causes of economic inequality and providing support to those in need. Through advocacy, service, and partnership, we work to create just systems and opportunities for all people to thrive.

I would say that we do an excellent job of meeting today’s needs. We support the Mission, GRACE, and Russell House with our time, talent, and treasure. Through them, we help individuals escape poverty and abusive circumstances. I think we should keep doing what we’re doing in this area, and expand as we are able.

But where we fall short is in addressing the root causes of poverty. The Mission recently posted a few reasons why people are homeless. Top reasons include: a lack of affordable housing—even in Rolla!; lack of a living wage; escaping domestic violence; medical debt; and mental illness, often related to PTSD or childhood trauma. I don’t know what I can do about any of these on my own, so I cook lunch once a week and hope that helps a little bit. As a congregation, though, we have a lot of resources. I’m not talking about money or space. I’m talking about people, smart and caring people, people who have time and social capital that can impact society.

Recently, a group started up in Rolla called Voters for Informed Action, which among other things has engaged in a letter-writing campaign and hosted a town hall. There is a separate but related group called Abide in Love that is supporting ICE detainees in the Phelps County Jail. These are things that any of us can do. The point is to pick something that enough people care about, then get together and DO SOMETHING.

And it doesn’t have to be big and earth-shaking. Here’s a story from PC(USA) about one congregation’s Matthew 25 efforts, published about a year ago:

The Mission Team at Calvary Presbyterian Church recently decided to donate funds for a new commercial stove and convection oven for the Chevy Chase Center. Their current, residential-style, donated stoves were no longer holding temperature and were becoming dangerous. It was hard for us on the Mission Team to see this organization that has given so much to our community just limping along.

Recently, the stove and oven were delivered and installed, and a few of our team members, along with some of the Chevy Chase Board members, gathered to celebrate!

This is a case where a church invested in some capital that will enable an organization to serve the poor for many years to come. Another story I read described a project that investigated the needs of various poor families in their rural area and bought them things like refrigerators and stoves. What good is fresh food if you do not have a reliable refrigerator? What good are ingredients if you have no way to cook them? Without a stove and refrigerator, many families would need to buy ready-to-eat food, which is usually less nutritious and more expensive.

See, solving the problem of poverty is too big a problem for us to solve on our own, but God amplifies whatever we do, combines it with the efforts of like-minded individuals and congregations and organizations, and little by little, establishes the kingdom of God.

So, what can we do? Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” Do you hear his voice? Do you hear him calling from the margins? What is he calling you to do, and what is he calling us all to do together? Jesus was not a military leader like Judah Maccabee, Judah the Hammer. He was the Prince of Peace and the Light of the world who came so that all might have abundant life. Let us seek together a way to foster God’s kingdom, to foster universal human flourishing, or at least a little more flourishing here in Rolla among the poor, neglected, and abused. Amen.

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Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on Easter Sunday, April 20, 2025. Based on John 20:1-18. I am indebted to Amy Evans whose Substack, “This Prayer Meeting Should Have Been a Fistfight,” introduced me to Jesus Points.

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I’d like to congratulate you all on earning 100 Jesus Points today. What are Jesus Points, you may ask? Well, you’ve probably never been taught about them, but you probably live by them, like most Christians.

I read about Jesus Points recently and felt compelled to teach you all about them. Don’t worry about taking notes; I’ll post this sermon online so you can refer back to it later. See, you earn 100 Jesus Points for coming to worship on Easter, 75 for coming to worship on Christmas Eve. A normal Sunday is 10; if you take communion, too, it bumps up to 15. Special services like Maundy Thursday are 20.

But you can lose Jesus Points, too. A few years ago, I was in a rough place mentally and emotionally. Rhonda and I went out to lunch after Easter service with Bob and Carlene, and I was kind of mean to the waitress. Being mean to servers is minus-20 points, and doing it on Sunday doubles that. Doing it on Easter quadruples it, I think.

So to make it up, I read my Bible a little extra. That’s one point each time you read it. You get another point if you pray, but you lose a point instead if you pray selfishly for something good to happen to you at someone else’s expense.

Those aren’t the only ways to earn or lose Jesus Points, though. Believing the wrong thing about salvation is an automatic minus-1000 points. Teaching someone else the wrong theology is minus-10,000. Boy, I really need to be careful up here.

If you marry a Christian, that’s plus-1000, but if you marry an atheist, that’s minus-1000. But then if you can get the atheist to come to church, even if they don’t believe, that gets cancelled out.

If you successfully evangelize and get someone to accept Jesus in their heart, that’s plus-5000. But of course, if you get them to believe the wrong thing, the minus-10,000 kicks in.

Oh, and don’t get me started on all the things you can do to earn or lose points at work, or by voting, or with your money. Are you spending your time and money in ways that glorify God? Or in ways that enrich you personally? But what if they do both? It gets super confusing.

Does this all sound familiar? You’ve probably never had a preacher spell it out for you, but I bet you’ve encountered someone who seemed to be helping you keep track of your Jesus Points, right? They might have commended you for giving to charity, or chided you for something you said or did. But here’s the thing: it’s all a lie. Just like Drew Carey said to open Whose Line Is It Anyway? Everything is made up and the points don’t matter. I’ll say it again: Jesus Points are made up and they just don’t matter!

There are lots of theories about what happened on the cross exactly, but I know this for certain: Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection put an end to this kind of recordkeeping FOREVER. Jesus came to reconcile us to God. No longer do we need to make sacrifices to satisfy God. No longer do we need to worry about which sins are worse than others. No longer do we need to live in fear of eternal damnation over something we did or failed to do. We have been reconciled to God through Jesus’s once-for-all sacrifice on the cross. Easter is the proof that even death has lost its sting.

Hear me again: There is no such thing as Jesus Points. You do not need to keep track of whether you’ve done enough good, or if you’ve committed some sin against God that might be unforgivable. There is nothing you can do to separate yourself from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Nothing. No matter what, God loves you! No matter what, you are welcome in God’s kingdom! The scandal of the Gospel is that there’s no such thing as “too much grace.” Through Christ, God offers grace upon grace upon grace!

So if you don’t have to earn Jesus Points, why do good? Why not just live a carefree life, with no respect for anyone or anything? If, as I believe, we are all destined for the eternal joy of God’s presence, why not have some sinful fun now?

Well, we have been freed of sin, guilt, and especially shame so that we can continue Jesus’s work. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Why? To be the light of the world, to show us the Truth with a capital T, to show us how to live. Jesus came to initiate the total transformation of the world into God’s kingdom. When he spoke of the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven, he wasn’t talking so much about what happens when you die, but instead he was telling us what would happen if we truly live. If we embrace his teachings and seek universal human flourishing, we will experience the kingdom of God in this age, not just in the age to come.

Jesus came to reconcile us with God. That much is true. But if we are reconciled to God, shouldn’t we seek to further God’s work in the world? This isn’t like paying God back for the work Jesus did. This is responding out of love.

When you love someone, your natural response is to want the best for them, and to want to help them in whatever they are trying to accomplish. Have you ever had a close friend ask you to support an organization that they were a part of? Maybe you didn’t care too much about the particular cause that they were pushing, but because of your love for your friend, you would support what they care about. True love is desiring the other person to thrive, to flourish, to reach their full potential, to achieve their goals. Well, loving God is expressed by helping to build God’s kingdom. Jesus came to preach forgiveness, to preach reconciliation in all relationships, to break down artificial barriers between individuals and tribes and nations, to restore outcasts to full participation in the community. Jesus came to heal the sick and free the prisoner. Jesus came to provide for everyone. If you love Jesus, you should desire to continue this work. If your efforts are unsuccessful, well, that’s OK. You are not the Messiah, just someone trying to help him. We will all fall short of what God asks us to do. I’m reminded of Micah 6:8:

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
    And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
    and to walk humbly with your God.

We should strive to act with justice, which in this case has a sense like restoring wholeness rather than pursuing retribution. We should highly value mercy, seeking reconciliation rather than punishment. And above all, we should walk with humility as we seek God’s guidance. Where pride is concerned with who is right, humility is concerned with what is right (Ezra T. Benson). I cannot claim to know the will of God, at least not in any detail. We should all recognize our limitations as finite human beings. We cannot know God’s designs for our lives or our community or our world. All we can do is act from a place of love and put our trust in God to guide our actions.

In this way, we can cultivate a world that more nearly approaches God’s kingdom. In many of Jesus’s parables about the kingdom of God, there was something organic about it. A mustard seed that became a large shrub, for example. The world will not become God’s realm overnight, but through steady, persistent effort, we can shape the world into a more just, more merciful society that enables everyone—everyone—to flourish and thrive.

You might be thinking, wait a minute—I thought I came to church this morning to earn my Jesus Points! And now I hear that they’re not a real thing? So why am I here? Well, let’s turn back to the lesson for the day. Mary Magdalene is despondent. She had lost her dear friend and teacher. She goes to Jesus’s tomb, hoping to mourn there, and finds the tomb empty! Now remember, nobody expected this. Nobody in first-century Galilee or Judea expected a Messiah who would be killed by the occupying Roman government, so everyone thought that Jesus’s death on the cross was the ignominious end of his movement. They certainly didn’t expect him to rise from the dead.

So Mary is even more distraught. Not only is her dear friend dead, but his body is gone! The disciples are no help, either; they look in the tomb, see that it’s empty, and go back home to hide. They’re probably scared of the Roman authorities. But Mary stays faithful to the end. She stays at the tomb where she can mourn. She keeps looking for her dear friend. Then the pivotal moment: Jesus calls her by name, and she sees her risen Lord, and exclaims, “Rabbouni! My Teacher!”

Mary encountered our risen Lord. This is the moment that began the transformation of Jesus’s followers from one more failed messianic movement that, as usual, ended in bloodshed, into a movement that would change the world. This is the moment that taught us all that Jesus had conquered sin and death once and for all. Empowered by her encounter, Mary rallied the disciples.

This is why we’re here. We come to worship together to encounter God. We surround ourselves with and embed ourselves in the body of Christ, which is the Church. We see God in each other through the love of God that we share. We are connected to something bigger than ourselves through the power of the liturgy, the prayers, and the music. Then, empowered by this encounter, we can go forth to transform the world into God’s kingdom.

Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection put an end to all accounting for our sins. He came so that we might have abundant life, a life free of guilt or shame, a life where we can confidently seek to build a better world, one that is more like God’s kingdom in which everyone can flourish. We come together today to encounter our risen Lord to be empowered to do His work today, this week, and throughout our lives.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! And he is present within each one of us and within us all together, guiding and strengthening us as we build his kingdom. Amen.

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